First Turf Moor game of the season for Mike Dean

Mike Dean will referee this evening’s game against Manchester United and it will be his first game at Turf Moor since he took charge of the final game of last season against Arsenal.

It was Arsenal again on the second weekend of this season when he was the referee for our game at the Emirates which was his last Burnley game and he’s been a familiar figure over the years. He refereed four of our games last season and today will see him referee us for a 42nd time, and that goes back to the day when Chris Waddle scored his one and only Burnley goal against Bournemouth in 1997.

He’s refereed some Burnley games badly, but he’s also refereed a lot of Burnley games well and that’s why, right now, with 25 qualifying games, he sits top of the RATE THE REF Table with a rating of 80.38 out of 100.

I wrote ahead of the Everton game that we could expect cards with Anthony Taylor. I was wrong, it was a rare card free day from him and card free days are as rare for Dean who is currently averaging four and a half cards per game with 61 yellows and two reds in 14 games, all of them in the Premier League.

There have been more yellow cards gone the way of home team players with 34, leaving the other 27 to go to away team players. His first red card this season came in a Manchester United game too. he sent off Southampton’s Kevin Danso in a game that ended 1-1 at St. Mary’s. In his very next game he dismissed West Ham’s Arthur Masuaku in a 0-0 draw at Arsenal.

Dean was the last referee to red card a Burnley player when he sent off Robbie Brady almost a year ago at Huddersfield. That was his 99th Premier League red card. That total has now reached 102 with Ashley Young having the honour of being number 100 in a 2-1 defeat for Manchester United at Wolves last April.

His most recent game was Manchester City’s 3-1 win against Leicester a week ago. There were four players yellow carded in the game. City had both Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan receive yellows and they were joined by Leicester pair Caglar Soyuncu and Onyinye Ndidi.

Our most experienced referee. I never concern myself when he gets a Burnley game although he does, at times, do a bit of attention seeking which now even includes his behaviour in the stands at Tranmere games. He has his bad games, and we might get one today, but they are outweighed by his good performances.

Anthony Taylor, referee at Everton two days ago, is fourth official while Michael Oliver, who will referee our next game against Aston Villa, will be on VAR duty.